Description
Early Cretaceous (Berriasian)
Yixian Formation
Liaoning Province, China
Big 15mm insect on 123mm slab.
Insect. Arthropod.
There’s never a Cretaceous insect expert around when you need one. Because I just got bit by a mosquito, I have some experience with insects so I am going to say it could be a beetle. The fact that it seems to display elytra (wing covers) offers evidence that it could be a beetle.
Compression-type fossils are tougher to ID than amber inclusions because compressions allow just one view and the specimen is distorted because of it. Amber allows a 3D view from different angles.